Kia ora Josie,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my open letter to Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop (Opinion ODT 26.1.26). I welcome the opportunity to engage.
To ensure we’re talking about the same thing, let me return to what I actually wrote to the minister (Opinion ODT 20.1.26).
The letter was not about mined minerals.
It was about one mineral. Gold. The letter was not about mining.
It was about one mine. The Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project.
At no stage did I say it shouldn’t happen, but somehow, by your third sentence, you had managed to align me (and my company) with what you described as the "anti-mining groups who dismiss mining while benefiting from the minerals they mine".
That’s minerals, plural. As I said, I was talking about just one. Gold.
Unlike copper, lithium, rare earths, or other industrial minerals that are consumed in infrastructure, energy systems, and manufacturing, the overwhelming majority of gold mined globally doesn’t go into productive use.
Only a small fraction is used in electronics and there is already more than enough of it in circulation to meet all foreseeable technological needs of companies like mine.
The constraint is not supply. It is where we choose to put the gold.
And where is that?
Well, the majority of it goes back into more holes in the ground. Bank vaults. Central-bank reserves. Private safes. Or into jewellery that, for the most part, sits idle.
And that distinction matters, because when the end use is financial storage rather than productive use, shouldn’t the bar for long-term risk be set much higher? After all, the gold’s not going away.
You then followed your mined minerals generalisation with this: "So, it appears that your objection is mainly on the ‘not in my backyard’ (Nimby) lines".
If the issue was simply about what happens in one corner of Otago I would accept that label and move on. But that is not the argument I made.
Otago isn’t an isolated corner of the country. It’s a region that helps underpin the national economy, having built a global reputation around horticulture, viticulture, tourism and food and beverage exports. Industries totally reliant on clean, pure water.
That backyard belongs to all of us.
New Zealand is a small island nation at the bottom of the world that has built its brand around being clean, green and environmentally responsible.
That brand is coming under increasing pressure as Resources Minister Shane Jones uses his stage for the "drill baby drill" message he is sending to the world and at the core of that message is the fast-track legislation.
A recent article from the New Zealand Institute of Directors, "Protecting 100% New Zealand", made the observation that "Our international reputation for ‘clean and green’ has become a competitive edge for our products, our investment story and our social licence".
They went on to note that "in an era of climate disruption and global scrutiny, reputation and resilience are inseparable".
Reputation and resilience are inseparable. So where does that place a cyanide-leach gold operation that plans to store 18million cubic metres of toxic tailings, including one of the most dangerous poisons on the planet, arsenic, behind a dam that is higher than the Clyde Dam?
A dam built of rock and earth in an area where seismic hazard planning is based on an accepted reality: a significant earthquake will occur. The only question is when.
Out of interest, the National Seismic Hazard model that was updated in 2023 has elevated the seismic risk across much of New Zealand by up to 100%.
You acknowledged this risk yourself when you wrote that "a major earthquake is likely to occur in New Zealand. If the Alpine Fault ruptures, there will be a lot to manage and catastrophic loss of life".
What Santana proposes is to add to that already complex scenario a structure holding a vast, permanent body of toxic waste, with the potential to contaminate the water systems feeding into the Otago catchment.
In a worst-case scenario, that means adding poisoned drinking water to an already life-threatening event. And unlike damaged roads or buildings, that contamination would persist for generations.
Santana claims, and you repeat its claim, that its design standards account for seismic risk. In fact, in its fast-track application, Santana goes so far as to state that "there is no credible long-term failure mode that could result in breach and release of tailings".
That is an incredibly bold claim, especially when "long-term" in the context of this dam of toxic waste means forever, in perpetuity, does not go away.
Which is possibly why the claim by Santana has been countered by a number of scientists and engineering specialists. And surely where there is disagreement on something this consequential, speed must give way to scientific certainty.
Anything less is not a managed risk. It is a deferred one. And this deferred one is forever.
You are right that many industries operate in seismically active environments, but very few create a single point of failure that, if it goes wrong, contaminates water systems downstream with irreversible consequences. That distinction should matter when it comes to fast-tracking projects.
And even if we were to remove the earthquake scenario from the equation, there is the very real risk that these toxins could leak into the surrounding aquifers over time. From my understanding, the huge waste dam won’t be lined but the toxins are expected to remain secure there, forever.
It is why the question I asked of Minister Bishop was a simple one: "Does the risk/reward balance justify this project being fast-tracked?"
It’s interesting you mentioned your time in the Netherlands. As I am sure you know, the Netherlands didn’t really experience earthquakes until it began large-scale gas extractions in the Groningen gas fields in the 1960s.
While the induced earthquakes that followed the drilling were not catastrophic in scale, they were serious enough to leave the people of the Netherlands with $2 billion in property damages before the gas fields were closed down.
The comparison here isn’t hypothetical. When we dig, extract or build, we have to be sure we’re not leaving future generations with a bill they can’t pay, whether it’s financial, environmental or both.
Interestingly, yours was not the only response I got following my letter to Minister Bishop. I also received one from a retired engineer in Bendigo, Australia.
He explained that he had lived through a modern attempt to revive their historic goldfields. That project was politically championed, heavily invested in and promoted as a responsible, modern mining operation.
A decade later it was abandoned, having produced far less gold than promised. The rehabilitation bond that was meant to protect the public proved inadequate and the state of Victoria has since spent many millions attempting, unsuccessfully, to manage contaminated mine water.
Local engineers estimate the true rehabilitation liability at well over $1b.
The lesson is not ideological. It is practical: when mining goes wrong, the company leaves and the public inherits the problem.
Clearly there is a lot to discuss, so how about this for a suggestion?
Why don’t you and I have this conversation in public at the Tarras community centre at a time that suits you. We could let the community decide whether the risk justifies fast-tracking a process to extract gold that is not going away.
Time is on our side.
• Sir Ian Taylor is the founder and managing director of Animation Research.
